Vent Diagram #2

It's so easy for everyone to tell you to do this. Harder for them to actually put themselves in your size 11 kicks and realize that the advice, while well in intention, is a lot harder than you can fathom.

Vent Diagram

Sleepless. And it wasn't because of the game...oh no, that's out of my system. What's really getting me at the moment is dealing with perception. Perception of being a failure for not doing what would be considered the norm. Perception of being a bum for not having something that 5 years later, keeps on eluding me. Perception that I'm a coward for not doing this one thing, despite my own inner self knowing that there's nothing left, no motivation to force it.

I'm sick of it. Just sick of how I have to hear the same old garbage every moment, the unintentional heaping of guilt because it's not what they want, the two-faced nature of people in my own inner circle, who will say one thing, then immediately go back on it with the next sentence.

Perception is a bitch.

Closure via Open Doors (Or, I'm Quitting School Again)

I think it's time to move on.

For the past five years , I've spent my life chasing something that lost it's meaning, lost it's feeling. In a storm of bad relationships, mental breakdowns, turning points, the reawakening of passions for something else, I was on a ship that was barely staying afloat.

While I can't deny that there were a lot of great moments at college, I feel as if all the mental breakdowns were unhealthy at best, terrorizing at worst. I can count on one hand the times I felt that I was on the verge of going down during the past couple of years. Maybe my method of handling stress is flawed, I dunno.

The worst of it was the immediate aftermath of the end of the semester. Going home, after believing that it was all over, my studying paying off for the final, and learning that it wasn't true, slowly destroyed me.

First reaction was shock. Apologetic shock. That I had let everyone else down. That I couldn't look at my friends in the same way I used to without feeling a heap of guilt.

Second wave was anger. That I was so close.

Third was the confusion, the depression setting in. The feeling of not being able to tell anyone how you felt, no one to talk openly about what was going on,and how alone I was.

Right before Christmas too.

Needless to say I was derailed. Didn't eat or sleep right for the rest of the week. Became very short tempered with people. Just wanted to step out of my own darkness, and get past it.

Christmas came and I gradually recovered. But after all was said and done, I realized how much damage had been done to me in those days. I almost reverted to my old 2009 self...which is something I swore would never happen to me, ever.

It became crystal clear that after all of that, it was time to walk away from college, possibly forever and make my own way in life, without a diploma.

Everyone's been telling me to go back. Here's what I think: After everything I went through and the amount of pressure that would inevitably rise during that period of time, among a lack of desire, a lack of motivation to go back to college, being one point away from being out of here...it's time to peace out.

I got the opportunity to have the best ending imagined last fall. But because of my own sense of stupidity, I've destroyed it.

My family is trying to sway me, even invoking the factor of my grandma to make me take their one path to success. I can't put into words the amount of respect I lost for my father for trying to guilt my decision making into being one filled with everyone else's lives on the line.

It's not going to be a quick fix, but it will be a fix that will allow me to live better. So call me a coward, a loser, a punk, a bum, that's all in your right to say so. But in walking away now, I gain the closure of an open door, that will eventually shut itself. And that I can live with.

You're talking to a guy who lived with the guilt of a bad relationship for 2 years...I got this :)

-L

Enter the War At Home

It's going to get ugly.

Hiding out in my basement, as a way to avoid eyesight with my mother, who is probably going to pull some crazy shit as a result of my decision to stop my education.

It was a hard choice: head into the future with no degree in a competitive job market and pull myself up or go back to a place that I felt zero motivation to return to, much less go back and waste everyone's time?

It felt like a relationship that started out wonderfully, then became rife with rumors and fights. Near breakups, and gifts to apologize. Then the real breakup. Reconciliation. Working it out. Nearly putting it together again, going out to buy the engagement ring and consumate the marriage...then coming home to realize, yes, the bitch pulled the same shit. Again.

At this point, it's either go back to you, give you one more chance, even though in the back of my mind, the love has died and will never return, or move on and accept that this was never going to work, somehow, it was expected to die.

I know I may have made the worst decision in my life, but in reality, I knew the risks. I knew the dangers. I knew the very likely chance that my own family may very well disown me, leave me behind because I've broken their trust, again. But with the alternate option of screwing this all up again, I felt more confident in my decision making abilities, based on my track record of being validated afterwards.

Tonight was unrelated. But coming home, feeling that going it alone in a situation that I would have none of my closest friends save for one there to see me and support my victories was all the motivation to stay faithful.

Isn't that ironic? The ones who believe in God, the ones who stay faithful...are the fastest to throw the captain off the ship when there's merely a stench in the air.

Absolutely sickening. Time to believe in the only person I can trust, me.